These are not strictly mortgage related but there are some services that come in handy for home movers and/or buyers that we thought you might be interested in. Where there is commission paid I will mention it, but that is not why we use the companies.
PODs
I am not sure how I can put in to words how great I think this idea is. They do not pay us any commission or kickback by the way, its just a genuinely great idea.
As someone who has moved home a few times over the years, packing and unpacking is usually left to the last minute. With PODS they come and drop a storage container off at your home before the move. You fill it up, they pick it up and then drop it off at your new place.
You then have as long as you want to unpack. I assume you have to pay for the container to remain at your home, but it means you can do everything at your own pace.
They look like a great idea, you can find out more here – https://ukpods.co.uk
HomeBox
This was something I noticed on an advert. I do not expect many of our customers will have a use for it as you are unlikely to be moving regularly, but I do wonder if you could make use of it for annual renewals on various subscriptions.
It is almost like having a personal assistant to look after your utility bills. You pay one bill and they pay your council tax, water, energy and internet – great for those of us who are busy or disorganised (or both) and a good way to help prevent missing payments or paying late.
Their website is https://www.homebox.co.uk
Movin Legal
This is one we do receive commission for. The only way I can describe them is like a price comparison for conveyancing companies. However, we do not use it like that. There are some conveyancers we use on there and they are useless. We try to stick to the same 2-3 companies, we get to know the conveyancers and by using them regularly I would like to think we can call in favours if needed.
But where Movin Legal come into their own is that we have account managers whose sole job is to chase for updates and keep things moving forward. This is great as it saves us both chasing for updates.
You can only access them through a broker or estate agent.
CheckMyFile
This is another one that does pay us a kickback. But again it is not the reason we use them. Obviously a lot of what we do is helping people who have bad credit. We always ask for a copy of the credit report and generally speaking that does not matter if it comes from equifax, experiean or transunion.
But where checkmyfile comes in is that it covers all 3 credit reports. This can be useful as you could find that certain adverse is missing from a particular credit report.
There is a good example where one of the water companies does not register defaults on one of the credit reports. There is also a lender who ONLY checks that particular credit report and better still, they do not ask about defaults – they rely on the information they pull from the credit report. Which means you could have a customer with a £1,000 default registered 2 days ago able to get a mortgage at normal rates.
Thats just one example, but there are others. So having checkmyfile can help, but also you can cancel your account within the month and it does not cost you a penny – win/win! –